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The two finalists for the job of Shelby County Elections Administrator each told the Election Commission last week that if they get the job they will have some rebuilding work to do in how local elections are conducted.

Remember how the schools merger story of about five years ago would change by the hour at times? That story has met its equal in what is becoming the first major challenge of the new Strickland administration at City Hall – the Overton Park Greensward.So much happened before noon Tuesday on the first day of the short work week that it required waiting for the dust to settle on several fronts.Here is the latest on a very fluid and volatile situation that could very well change as you are reading this.Luckily we report at a time when you can change stories on line to keep up with such changes.Zoos and parks and protests featuring brass bands suggest to a casual observer that this is not very serious as controversies go.And maybe that was the case about a year and a half ago when a group of high school students decided to block the gravel driveway from the zoo parking lot onto the greensward.But consider this:The Memphis Zoo is working toward a March 1 opening of its new exhibit, Zambezi River Hippo Camp, a $22-million attraction that from what we saw just a few months ago will likely draw big crowds to the zoo in the spring.The zoo was preparing for that starting with the removal of 27 trees from the north end of the greensward.The best Mayor Jim Strickland could get from both sides – the zoo and Overton Park Conservancy – at his meeting with them Tuesday was a commitment to take his proposal for mediation to their respective boards.The zoo board has authorized its leaders to file a lawsuit in Chancery Court over the greensward and it’s very likely the zoo would go to court before the March 1 opening because of the crowds on their way.If the work to come by the zoo in advance of the March 1 opening involves heavy machinery, the reaction is likely to draw a much bigger protest than the ones Memphis Police have so far watched from a distance without making arrests.As in all pressing political dramas, this controversy has the accelerant of timing.

How was your weekend, Memphis? Here's our first weekly rundown of local happenings you need to know about, from the Indie Memphis Film Festival to Mississippi elections...

If you love the outdoors and good weather, these are the days you’ve been missing. And few things are as “fall” as a fall festival, and the kickoff of Miss Cordelia’s Saturday Market series this weekend seems like one more thing worth adding to the list of things to do in Memphis. There’ll be a growler station, local food and beer sampling, pop-up retail and food specials.

Originally scheduled for Nov. 8, the city of Memphis runoff election date has been moved to Nov. 19 after Shelby County Election Commission officials noticed a longstanding conflict between city charter and state law.

Originally scheduled for Nov. 8, the city of Memphis runoff election date has been moved to Nov. 19 after Shelby County Election Commission officials noticed a longstanding conflict between city charter and state law.

Now that they’ve made the filing deadline for the Oct. 8 Memphis elections, candidates have until Thursday, July 23, to withdraw if they wish before the ballot is set later that day in the 15 city races.

The only real controversy locally about the proposed amendment to the Tennessee Constitution on judicial selection is confusion about how the race for Tennessee governor on the same Nov. 4 ballot is connected to the votes on that and three other amendments.

When Latino Memphis held its first annual Leadership Luncheon last week in East Memphis, the ballroom at the Holiday Inn University of Memphis included political and business leaders among the group of 800 people.

The Shelby County Election Commission certified the August election results Monday, Aug. 25, at the beginning of a week that includes an early oath of office for those elected to county offices on the ballot.

One more weekend of early voting and then it’s the four-day sprint to election day for candidates, their campaigns and the voters who didn’t vote during the early voting period.

Because of the length of the ballot – the longest of any election cycle in Shelby County political history – state election officials are encouraging voters who have made their decisions to vote early.

The closest race in the May Shelby County primary elections turned into a tale of the tape Wednesday, May 21, as the Shelby County Election Commission certified the results of that and all of the other races on the ballot.

Shelby County Election Commissioners certified the ballot Wednesday, April 16, for the Aug. 7 state and federal primary elections and the nonpartisan judicial and Shelby County Schools board elections on what politicos call the “big ballot.”

The Memphis City Council approved Tuesday, Jan. 21, a set of six alley and street closures on parcels totaling 28 acres in the Poplar Avenue-Cleveland Street area. The area, once known as Washington Bottoms, was cleared of buildings in 2008 in anticipation of redevelopment by a Memphis division of WSG Development Co. of Miami Beach, Fla.

The Memphis City Council approved Tuesday, Jan. 21, a set of six alley and street closures on parcels totaling 28 acres in the Poplar Avenue-Cleveland Street area. The area, once known as Washington Bottoms, was cleared of buildings in 2008 in anticipation of redevelopment by a Memphis division of WSG Development Co. of Miami Beach, Fla.

Memphis City Council members got a first and at times conflicting look Tuesday, Jan. 21, at the hard decisions they could make about city spending on public safety.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. walked the council through some ideas for cuts in city spending beyond larger changes in city retirement and health benefits. Those obligations are the “cornerstone” of the efforts to get the city’s financial house in order, said city Chief Administrative Officer George Little.

MEMPHIS (AP) – The FBI has told Shelby County Election Administrator Richard Holden it wants to speak with him and six other election workers about how they complete their job responsibilities, an official said Thursday.

Memphis City Council members are scheduled to pick up Tuesday, Jan. 7, where they left off last month in considering a proposal in which the city of Memphis would buy AutoZone Park and contribute toward improvements to the ballpark.

As harsh as the criticism has been of the way the Shelby County Election Commission conducted elections in 2012, no one, including those who filed two Chancery Court lawsuits over the results, have said or presented proof it was intentional.

In six hours, Shelby County Commissioners voted down the first of three readings on a proposed $20,000 pay raise for Shelby County Schools board members and kept the pay of the county Mayor, Sheriff, Trustee, Register, County Clerk and Assessor at the same level they are now.

Shelby County Commissioners won’t be voting on anything having to do with the proposed sale of AutoZone Park when they meet Monday, Dec. 16.

The resolution involving their piece of the original terms of financing for the ballpark in 1998 was pulled from the agenda of the last meeting of 2013 at the request of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. last week.

At one point during the Wednesday, Feb. 20, meeting of the Shelby County Election Commission, chairman Robert Meyers interrupted a detailed and lengthy lecture by election commissioner George Monger by saying, “I object to the leading question.”

For the second time since August, Shelby County Election Commissioners considered a motion by a Democratic election commissioners asking for the resignation of Election Administrator Richard Holden and for the second time voted down the motion in a party- line vote carried by the three-member Republican majority.

The certification sets in motion the swearing-in of members of the six suburban municipal school boards. And the boards, one for each of the suburban towns and cities in Shelby County, are expected to move quickly on a process for selecting superintendents for each school system by the end of the year.

The last election of 2012 will be one where questions continue to command as much attention if not more than candidates.

The polls are open Tuesday, Nov. 6, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Voters come to the polls in this election to vote in the presidential general election. That is what drives the only election cycle in which more than half of the county’s registered voters consistently show up.

The Shelby County Election Commission has identified 837 disputed votes in the Aug. 2 election for the District 4 countywide school board seat.

The information disclosed last week as part of a legal challenge of the results in the district race prompted a delay of a trial in the case before Chancellor Kenny Armstrong until some time after the Nov. 6 elections.

The Tennessee Comptroller’s audit division has concluded the Shelby County Election Commission has “demonstrated an inability to conduct elections without significant inaccuracies, including those identified in the 2012 elections.”

Shelby County Elections Administrator Richard Holden has been suspended for three days and put on probation for six months following the suspension because of the way the Aug. 2 elections were conducted.

Countywide school board member Kenneth Whalum Jr. filed suit against the Shelby County Election Commission Wednesday, Aug. 22, in the first of what are expected to be two election challenges.

Whalum is specifically contesting his loss to Kevin Woods in the District 4 countywide school board race on the Aug. 2 ballot. The 108-vote margin between Woods and Whalum was certified Monday by the election commission as it made official the results in all of the primary and general election races on the ballot.

Countywide school board member Kenneth Whalum Jr. filed suit against the Shelby County Election Commission Wednesday, Aug. 22, in the first of what are expected to be two election challenges.

Whalum is specifically contesting his loss to Kevin Woods in the District 4 countywide school board race on the Aug. 2 ballot. The 108-vote margin between Woods and Whalum was certified Monday by the election commission as it made official the results in all of the primary and general election races on the ballot.

The schools consolidation planning commission is getting close enough to its goal of a plan for the merged school system that some members are now weighing how much political headroom to give the countywide school board.

Next school year, a group of 112 schools in the separate Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools systems will operate outside the framework used by each of the school systems for governing their other schools.

Shelby County Schools Board chairman David Pickler has selected the mayor of Bartlett, a county schools parent, the longtime head of the Shelby County Education Association, a reitred county schools administrator and a former Shelby County commissioner to serve on the schools consolidation planning commission.

Each person signing must be a registered voter in the city of Memphis and list the address that is on their voter registration record.

A total of 33 petitions were filed by the noon deadline. But several candidates were disqualified for not having enough signatures. And then three were returned to the list of candidates after a second check of their petitions. Those who returned to candidate status included Memphis school board member Sharon Webb.

Those who made today's cut have until noon Sept. 10 to withdraw from the race. The field will then become final.

Sullivan showed up at the Election Commission in a white Rolls Royce wearing a white suit.

“When you see this white suit, you know I’m coming at you,” he told reporters as he outlined a plan to turn The Pyramid over to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital instead of the proposed lease to Bass Pro Shops.

“It’s going to be a dogfight,” Sullivan said of the mayor’s race.

When someone asked if he would still be in the race after next week’s withdrawal deadline, Sullivan said he was in “to the violent end.”

“You know you can’t win,” political blogger and radio talk show host Thaddeus Matthews said to Sullivan.

“Why not?” Sullivan replied.

Anthony Willoughby, the last candidate to file before noon, told reporters he was a Realtor-broker who played a role in the development of Banneker Estates in southwest Memphis, the subdivision developed by former Mayor Willie Herenton.

“I’m not a politician,” Willoughby said. “I’m going to run on that statement.”

Willoughby didn't have enough qualified signatures, though. So he won't be running.

Daniko Flowers, a construction worker still wearing his safety vest, showed up at five minutes before noon and checked out a petition. He returned at three minutes past noon and was not allowed to file. Flowers only had 18 signatures on the petition anyway.

The words of FBI special agent My Harrison at a press conference about the latest public corruption scandal in Memphis resonated with the force of a shotgun blast.

"Tap, tap, tap - you never know where we're going to be," Harrison said on Nov. 30, the day two Memphis City Council members were implicated in a bribery scandal. The multi-agency investigation that triggered the press conference, "Main Street Sweeper," is continuing, she added.

As colorful a Memphian as they come, he's been known as a radio "shock jock," a repo man, a tough-talking political watchdog, convicted felon, salesman, preacher, bounty hunter and a firebrand who continues to bemuse political observers.

84. Archived Article: Comm Briefs - Friday, December 1, 2000 Richard Holden, a member of the Shelby County Election Commission is the speaker at the Dutch Treat Luncheon at 12:30 p Richard Holden, a member of the Shelby County Election Commission, is the speaker at the Dutch Treat Luncheon at 12:30 p.m. Dec. ...

85. Archived Article: Shelby School Bids Lj - Monday, March 27, 2000 County seeks bids County seeks bids For school projects By LAURIE JOHNSON The Daily News The Shelby County Board of Education has started its search for a general contractor interested in overseeing construction of three school addition projects. Th...

86. Archived Article: Gov't (lead) - Monday, October 18, 1999 County school system County school system plans new bus facility By KATHLEEN BURT The Daily News A new facility that would replace a current one and save taxpayer dollars is on the drawing board for Shelby County Schools. The new facility is planned...